The Whole Foods Alternative to ObamaCare | Wall Street Journal

Eight things we can do to improve health care without adding to the deficit.

Published Tuesday, August 11, 2009 4:00 am

by John Mackay

"The problem with socialism is that eventually you run out
of other people's money."

—Margaret Thatcher

With a projected $1.8 trillion deficit for 2009, several trillions
more in deficits projected over the next decade, and with both Medicare
and Social Security entitlement spending about to ratchet up several
notches over the next 15 years as Baby Boomers become eligible for
both, we are rapidly running out of other people's money. These
deficits are simply not sustainable. They are either going to result in
unprecedented new taxes and inflation, or they will bankrupt us.

While we clearly need health-care reform, the last thing our country
needs is a massive new health-care entitlement that will create
hundreds of billions of dollars of new unfunded deficits and move us
much closer to a government takeover of our health-care system.
Instead, we should be trying to achieve reforms by moving in the
opposite direction—toward less government control and more individual
empowerment. Here are eight reforms that would greatly lower the cost
of health care for everyone:

Remove the legal obstacles that slow the creation of high-deductible health insurance plans and health savings accounts (HSAs).
The combination of high-deductible health insurance and HSAs is one
solution that could solve many of our health-care problems. For
example, Whole Foods Market pays 100% of the premiums for all our team
members who work 30 hours or more per week (about 89% of all team
members) for our high-deductible health-insurance plan. We also provide
up to $1,800 per year in additional health-care dollars through
deposits into employees' Personal Wellness Accounts to spend as they
choose on their own health and wellness. Money not spent in one year rolls over
to the next and grows over time. Our team members therefore spend their
own health-care dollars until the annual deductible is covered (about
$2,500) and the insurance plan kicks in. This creates incentives to
spend the first $2,500 more carefully. Our plan's costs are much lower
than typical health insurance, while providing a very high degree of
worker satisfaction.

Equalize the tax laws so that employer-provided health
insurance and individually owned health insurance have the same tax
benefits. Now employer health insurance benefits are fully tax deductible, but individual health insurance is not. This is unfair.

Repeal all state laws which prevent insurance companies from competing across state lines.
We should all have the legal right to purchase health insurance from
any insurance company in any state and we should be able use that
insurance wherever we live. Health insurance should be portable.

Repeal government mandates regarding what insurance companies must cover. These
mandates have increased the cost of health insurance by billions of
dollars. What is insured and what is not insured should be determined
by individual customer preferences and not through special-interest
lobbying.

Enact tort reform to end the ruinous lawsuits that force
doctors to pay insurance costs of hundreds of thousands of dollars per
year. These costs are passed back to us through much higher prices for health care.

Make costs transparent so that consumers understand what health-care treatments cost. How
many people know the total cost of their last doctor's visit and how
that total breaks down? What other goods or services do we buy without
knowing how much they will cost us?

Enact Medicare reform. We need to face up to the
actuarial fact that Medicare is heading towards bankruptcy and enact
reforms that create greater patient empowerment, choice and
responsibility.

Finally, revise tax forms to make it easier for individuals to
make a voluntary, tax-deductible donation to help the millions of
people who have no insurance and aren't covered by Medicare, Medicaid
or the State Children's Health Insurance Program.

Many promoters of health-care reform believe that people have an
intrinsic ethical right to health care—to equal access to doctors,
medicines and hospitals. While all of us empathize with those who are
sick, how can we say that all people have more of an intrinsic right to
health care than they have to food or shelter?

Health care is a service that we all
need, but just like food and shelter it is best provided through
voluntary and mutually beneficial market exchanges. A careful reading
of both the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution will not
reveal any intrinsic right to health care, food or shelter. That's
because there isn't any. This "right" has never existed in America

Even in countries like Canada and the U.K., there is no intrinsic
right to health care. Rather, citizens in these countries are told by
government bureaucrats what health-care treatments they are eligible to
receive and when they can receive them. All countries with socialized
medicine ration health care by forcing their citizens to wait in lines
to receive scarce treatments.

Although Canada has a population smaller than California, 830,000
Canadians are currently waiting to be admitted to a hospital or to get
treatment, according to a report last month in Investor's Business
Daily. In England, the waiting list is 1.8 million.

At Whole Foods we allow our team
members to vote on what benefits they most want the company to fund.
Our Canadian and British employees express their benefit preferences
very clearly—they want supplemental health-care dollars that they can
control and spend themselves without permission from their governments.
Why would they want such additional health-care benefit dollars if they
already have an "intrinsic right to health care"? The answer is
clear—no such right truly exists in either Canada or the U.K.—or in any
other country.

Rather than increase government
spending and control, we need to address the root causes of poor
health. This begins with the realization that every American adult is
responsible for his or her own health.

Unfortunately many of our health-care problems are self-inflicted:
two-thirds of Americans are now overweight and one-third are obese.
Most of the diseases that kill us and account for about 70% of all
health-care spending—heart disease, cancer, stroke, diabetes and
obesity—are mostly preventable through proper diet, exercise, not
smoking, minimal alcohol consumption and other healthy lifestyle
choices.

Recent scientific and medical evidence shows that a diet consisting
of foods that are plant-based, nutrient dense and low-fat will help
prevent and often reverse most degenerative diseases that kill us and
are expensive to treat. We should be able to live largely disease-free
lives until we are well into our 90s and even past 100 years of age.

Health-care reform is very important. Whatever reforms are enacted
it is essential that they be financially responsible, and that we have
the freedom to choose doctors and the health-care services that best
suit our own unique set of lifestyle choices. We are all responsible
for our own lives and our own health. We should take that
responsibility very seriously and use our freedom to make wise
lifestyle choices that will protect our health. Doing so will enrich
our lives and will help create a vibrant and sustainable American
society.